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Copywork
About This Passage
Wilbur has just heard about the Queensborough Bridge - a web of steel that took men eight whole years to build. Charlotte, who can make a web in a single evening, explains what the bridge people never learn. Her speech turns one wordplay - a bridge is 'sort of' a web - into a whole way of living: stay put, wait quietly, and let the good thing come to you.
"No," said Charlotte. "They don't catch anything. They just keep trotting back and forth across the bridge thinking there is something better on the other side. If they'd hang head-down at the top of ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell the chapter in two movements. First the daylight comedy: the leg lesson with its seven scientific names, Wilbur's boast, the coached first jump, Templeton's string and the second crash, and Charlotte's honest verdict. Then the evening turn: the bridge speech, the lamb's interruption, twilight settling, the remembered danger, the plan in its early stages, and the orders that end in good nights. Keep track of where the laughing stops and the trembling starts.
Discussion Questions
- Charlotte knows from the start that pigs cannot spin webs - yet when Wilbur boasts, she says, 'Let's see you do it,' and even coaches him: 'Take a deep breath!' Only after the second crash does she tell him plainly to put the idea out of his mind. Why might Charlotte let Wilbur try and fail twice instead of stopping him with the truth right away? Use the details of her coaching, her laughter, and her final verdict to explain what the two attempts reveal.
- Charlotte calls herself 'a sedentary spider' and says staying put 'Gives me a chance to think.' Later, Wilbur learns where she works on her plan: hanging head-down at the top of her web, 'because then all the blood is in my head.' What do these two moments together suggest about what is happening while Charlotte seems still? Use the words of her sedentary speech and the details of the bedtime talk to explain what is really going on in her stillness.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Staying in one place instead of moving about.
Item 2
The body parts a spider uses to make silk for its web.
Item 3
The safety thread a spider lets out behind itself as it drops.
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Critical Thinking
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